The Pretender
by confusedsarcasm
Summary: In a world of sugar-coated corruption, no one is real; no one can be trusted. The real advice is simple: Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer, but when the two are one in the same, keep your distance. And never believe your ears when...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I know I shouldn't, but I'm starting a new story. Don't worry if you're reading any of my other stuff, I'll update those when I can. I just had to write this when the idea popped into my head. So, I started writing and the ideas only got bigger and better. I have some awesome plans for this story, so I hope you'll join it with me! Reviews are incredibly helpful so please, don't be shy! I'm so excited! This is gonna be great!

Title: The Pretender

Summary: Your mother always told you not to talk to strangers, but wasn't that what she was? In a world of sugar-coated corruption, no one is real; no one can be trusted. The real advice is simple: Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer. But when the two are one in the same, keep your distance. And never believe your ears when you ask the question, "Who are you?"

Characters: I'll eventually try to get all of them in here, even the newbies.

Pairings: None as of yet, but if you know me, well, then you just know.

Genre: Supernatural, Suspense, Action, Horror

Rating: T (may go up later)

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Chapter I:

"Talking to Strangers"

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There was something eerie about the clouds that covered the vast expanse of sky that morning as Cuddy stepped outside from the threshold of her home and strode mechanically towards her driveway and towards her resting car in its usual place on the paved driveway. Maybe it was the way they converged into each other so seamlessly and created an originally natural yet dangerously beautiful scarlet color in stark contrast with the pastel combination of light purples and pale blues, as if the sky were a black canvas and the clouds a troubled artist, pouring his anguished soul onto it unreservedly for the world to see.

But what really sent the chills down Cuddy's spine in a different way than the morning chill induced shivers as she opened her car door to step inside into the welcoming leather seats was the way the scarlet blanket of clouds swirled quickly and without warning with a sudden gust of air, controlling the surrounding trees and grass and sending them into a contagion of movements across the neighborhood. The clouds swirled like a hurricane or tornado moving in slow motion, revealing, at last, through the "eye" of this "hurricane" a clear vision of a black sun, somehow casting a shadow of her image across her paved driveway that didn't settle well with her.

The shadow that stretched behind and below her was undefined, as if it didn't understand its own form, and was desperately struggling to reach an agreement with itself and create a structured representation of Cuddy herself, but before it could contort to her form, it disappeared just as hastily as it had fell, causing Cuddy to draw her inquisitive eyes upward, following the odd sensation as it disappeared beyond the ominous clouds and into the black abyss of the sun.

The trees stopped their dance with each other and the grass stood still and calm as Cuddy blinked away the strange sensation and continued her daily routine to the hospital with a new feeling of something…unsettling.

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She didn't even make it to the hospital that morning.

Cuddy pulled over onto the curb and shut her car off quickly, without even sparing a moments time to remove the key out of the ignition, and ran as fast as her heels allowed her to the adjacent street corner.

"What happened?" Cuddy kneeled down next to the stranger, lying helplessly alone on the abandoned sidewalk, his dark hair matted down to his forehead with blood, also plastering his once white t-shirt entirely in the dreaded crimson color.

The man opened his mouth as if to speak while Cuddy fumbled for her cell phone.

"It's going to be okay, you'll be fine," she assured the man as best she could as she dialed the familiar hospital's number into the small buttons of her cell phone.

"Who are you?" The absurdity of such a question—that a man so seemingly near to death would bother with formalities as opposed to more proper groans of pain and fear and confusion and helplessness, failed to register in the panicked doctor's mind as she answered him promptly and as calmly as the situation allowed her.

"My name is Lisa. I'm a doctor—Dr. Cuddy. Help is on the way," still trying to calm the man, Cuddy continued to talk, "what's your name?"

The man drew his brown eyes closed tightly together, a gesture not foreign to Cuddy as anything but pure pain, but somehow, this look was...off.

This morning's prior strangeness filled Cuddy's body once again like a sudden intake of air into a collapsed lung. He was in pain, that much was evident and undeniable, but his expression revealed that there was something else bothering him—as if his pain hadn't triggered this reaction, but rather something Cuddy had said.

This man was searching for an answer to Cuddy's question.

His pain was masked only by his confusion which was then only rivaled by his frustration and even still, once again, his pain—only not physical.

A powerful blast of wind emerged from around the corner of the tall brick office building beside Cuddy and the fallen man, almost knocking her down. It did manage to whip her cell phone straight from her hand and hurl it carelessly into the street beside her, almost snapping it in half, but definitely cracking it. Cuddy ignored it and looked back to the stranger beside her.

She must have missed it before, but it was clear as day to her now.

His eyes were now as black as the sun had been this morning.

But before she could analyze it any further, another forceful gust of wind emerged from nowhere and knocked Cuddy to the ground effortlessly.

In her struggle to get up from her hands and knees, she missed the way the black eyes of the stranger and the illuminating light of the sun, for one vital moment, switched roles with one another.

A heavy shadow now falling upon the darkened streets, another gust of overpowering wind took residence in the thick air. A brutal snap sounded from some unknown origin around Cuddy and the wind gained a supernatural strength as it lifted the broken branch from the large tree in the center of a small patch of grass upon which a few ornaments of shrubbery, a few park benches and a decorative fountain lay posing as a miniature park was lifted effortlessly into the air and hurled through the abandoned street directly into Cuddy's struggling body violently, knocking her unconscious.

The sound of wood on skull only intensified the gusting winds and once again, like the passing of the Olympic torch or a baton in a relay race, the sun traded its endless black color and with it, its dark emptiness contained within, for Cuddy's steel blue eyes, and for that moment only, like a snapshot in time holding the moment in place, the stranger lay motionless on the ground, his incandescent eyes burning with all the intensity capable of the sun itself, but becoming dimmer and dimmer until a life that never truly filled him departed from his frozen body and occupied Cuddy's motionless form.

His ever dimming eyes dulled into nothingness before returning to the plain chocolate brown Cuddy had remember seeing upon first glance. Cuddy's black eyes slowly regained their original grey-blue color from the sun as the giant star became brighter and brighter until it returned to its naturally bright condition. The weather calmed down instantaneously as the sun once again shone upon the streets of Princeton.

The approaching sound of sirens and the vision of an ambulance in the near distance appeared upon the conclusion of the violent weather and the sun's unnatural behavior. Everything seemed completely normal again as the ambulance approached an entirely new scene from when it was first summoned. The sun's full illuminating light now shone upon an entirely new scene—a motionless Cuddy, sprawled out across the pavement of a bloodstained sidewalk, unconscious...and alone.

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Chapter II:

"Rude Awakenings"

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The sheets were too cottony to be hers. The bed was too high—too small. It smelled so...clean—sterile, like a ...hospital.

Cuddy lifted her hand to the throbbing sensation in her head, making her close her eyes in a useless attempt to escape from the pain.

"Careful with that." A deep voice entered the room—too deep, again, not hers.

Cuddy shifted her eyes and removed her hand from the bandage around her head to get a better look at the intruding voice's owner who had just entered her obvious non-home.

"What happened?" Cuddy asked as her surroundings soon became evident.

"I was actually going to ask you the same question," began House, stepping further into the room, "whatever you did to piss off that tree must've been good for that branch to want to jump off and make friends with your head," he finished sarcastically.

"It was windy," Cuddy countered weakly—an excuse House dismissed easily.

"Winds like that don't emerge out of nowhere for intervals of as little as two or three minutes at a time," he stated factually. "When the ambulance arrived it was clear and sunny," he added in a mock cheerful tone, "—perfect weather for picnics and frolicking in ridiculously colorful flowers," his voice returned to normal, "let's just say it wasn't the kind of weather for tree demolishing—although some might argue that a tree is just a big flower," House shrugged carelessly, "but forget about them, they wouldn't think that if they were attacked by a tree like you were."

Cuddy rolled her eyes, a gesture she had grown so used to around House it was more common to her than blinking. "When can I get back to work?" Cuddy asked flippantly, wanting nothing more than to get out of the itchy hospital bed sheets that were tucked in so tightly it was literally pinning her to the small bed.

House couldn't help but grin at the once in a lifetime sight of Cuddy struggling to release herself from the confining cotton sheets, but didn't indulge too much time into watching the amusing scene. "You have no interest in why or _how_," he stressed, "that tree branch managed to separate from that tree so easily and put you in a hospital bed?" House narrowed his eyes in Cuddy's direction before grinning slyly, "Or is my presence combined with the fact that you're in a bed creating certain thoughts in your mind that are making you uncomfortable and you're just trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible so the temperature will cool down a little bit?"

Cuddy responded with yet another eye roll. "Yes, that's exactly it," she responded sarcastically, "I feel fine, and it's not like I can do anything about the weather so I might as well get back to work," she reasoned, "I have things to do."

With that Cuddy finally freed herself of the constricting bed sheets and lifted herself off the bed after lowering the guard rail on House's side. "Oh," Cuddy began in realization, "how is he?—that man?"

House furrowed his brow and scrutinized Cuddy carefully, "We found you lying on the concrete alone," explained House, "there was no man."

Confusion flashed across Cuddy's face but she shook it off. Without another word, she strode past House as if at full health and disappeared somewhere among the many bodies of people and doctors at the end of the long hallway.

House watched her go from behind, admiring the free show as always—his all time favorite spectator sport, then retreated in the opposite direction slowly; he could bother her another time. She was behind in her work now, meaning that he wouldn't get anything more from her until she worked herself back into that same hospital bed. For now there were some unanswered questions that needed attention.

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_I'm so exhausted...who knew a head injury could take so much out of a person_... Cuddy locked her front door behind her and threw her keys on her coffee table as she stretched out on her sofa to unwind from the extra long day now behind her. She closed her eyes and tried to replace the images of patients, paperwork, complaints, forms, and unruly doctors with much more serene things like sleep or warming fireplaces, or maybe even a beach—perhaps her sleeping on the warm sand of a beach with the sun sending a warming sensation throughout her whole body while the contrastingly cool waves lapped at the coast of the sand under her fee-- KNOCK, KNOCK...

An intruding rasping at her front door lifted Cuddy from her reverie and she automatically rose from her sofa to answer it. She had long since abandoned her heels somewhere near her trail to the comforting couch and the imagined feeling of sand between her toes was replaced gradually by the feeling of a cold, hardwood floor as she approached the persistent knocking at her front door. "Just a second, I'm coming!" Cuddy tried to quell the visitor's eagerness, but the sound of knuckle on wood didn't falter until Cuddy's hand made contact with the door handle.

There was an odd sensation as Cuddy's skin made contact with the cool metal of the doorknob—more like a premonition rather, that told Cuddy not to open the door. This knock was unfamiliar to Cuddy. She rarely had visitors, but when she did she could usually tell who was on the other side of the wood barrier by their knock.

Thankfully, it wasn't wood on wood—or cane on wood signaling House, it wasn't short and light—the less familiar signal of the occasional visit by Wilson, and it wasn't even the rarest of them all—the rhythmical tap, tap, ta-tap, tap that her family members would use. But she wasn't expecting that; it wasn't around the holidays. In fact, she wasn't expecting any of them...yet another reason not to open the door.

But she was already there; her hand was turning the knob. Why not? It might be a hospital emergency. Cuddy stopped her hand's rotation mid turn. That's what her cell-phone was for. Cuddy shook her head. This was ridiculous. She pushed all negative intuition and all doubt out of her mind as she made the final push to open the door.

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The roar of House's engine was cut off and the sound dulled gradually as the bike was put to a temporary rest. House removed himself from his bike, exiting off on the left side and retrieving his cane from its holster on the other side of the bike.

He glanced around with careful eyes—searching, examining, memorizing, analyzing. He made his way past the bloodstained side-walk—not much to be seen there, and traveled in a straight path through the yellow tinged grass towards a rather large tree in the center of this small aspirant park. There was an astoundingly large spot on the side of the tree where the branch had appeared to be ripped clear off, as if a chainsaw had been taken to it. This wasn't bad weather or even years of bad weather, thought House.

House imagined the projected path of the branch all the way across the park and to the dried pool of blood on the sidewalk at the other end of the street. The branch had been removed in order to not create traffic or other potential hazards, but House could imagine the shape and outline of it on the sidewalk...but something wasn't right.

He followed the tree branch's earlier path to the sidewalk and analyzed the pavement with narrowed eyes. There was too much blood. Cuddy wouldn't be walking if she had lost that much blood. But not only that. The blood was pooled evenly across the pavement. There was no spatter at all that would inevitably form from such contact with the piece of nature that had collided with Cuddy's skull.

Either Cuddy was bleeding before she was hit by the tree branch or... House just couldn't put his finger on it. He wasn't a detective, he was a diagnostician—similar, but two completely different professions. She had claimed the presence of another man, but he wasn't there when the ambulance arrived. If this was his blood, he wouldn't have been able to walk away either.

As the sun died down, House decided to turn in for the day. He had plenty to speculate over now and needed to get his rest if he was going to be capable of functioning in the morning.

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The cold wind from outside bit at Cuddy's exposed legs as the door gradually revealed the undeniable figure of a man clad in all dark attire, blending in almost completely with the surrounding dark of night. Cuddy regarded the late night visitor carefully as she skimmed her eyes slowly up and down the tall man. He had both his hands in his pockets, pulling the open ends of his black coat together, not allowing any of the material of his shirt underneath to be exposed. Cuddy's eyes fell down the dark jeans and onto the surface of his shoes before rising back up to his face. The collar of his jacket was lifted up, perhaps shielding his exposed neck from the cold wind of outside, which blew swiftly across his rough face, causing him to tug his jacket closer to him reflexively in search of warmth. He looked as if he had been through a rough time if Cuddy had ever seen one before—a combination of weeks of sleepless nights and relentless days. His face was unshaven and his heavy dark stubble was making its way down his neck. His hair was just as unkempt, but blew freely with the wind.

"Can I help you?" Cuddy broke the silence, her voice drawing the man's eyes up from the door mat where it had been silently stationed during Cuddy's quick inspection to meet Cuddy's questioning tone.

The man looked troubled—on the verge of an emotional breakdown, torn between an internal struggle of something he didn't look too sure about himself. But he stood his ground silently as he tried to configure the right words to convey his mysterious purpose.

The whole while the stranger searched Cuddy's welcome mat for the right words, Cuddy took her time to look the stranger in his eyes from her comfortable, yet safe distance behind the open crack of her doorway. She recognized those brown eyes! And that face—filled with the same worry and confusion as before...

"I'm so sorry." The man spoke almost inaudibly and Cuddy unconsciously opened the door a little wider and leaned in just a hair more to listen. There was something about this man—the way he carried himself, the absence of any gleam of life in his eyes that disturbed Cuddy, yet at the same time, did nothing to validate any dangerous qualities to this stranger.

He spoke again before Cuddy could question him. "You're in danger..." the softness that underlay in his urgent tone accompanied by the pain evident behind his unreadable eyes was the only factor that stopped Cuddy from hastily shutting the door in this man's face from such a declaration.

"Who are you?" Cuddy repeated her question from the unusual morning and waited for an answer.

The man shook his head diffidently. "It doesn't matter." He shifted his weight from his right to his left leg unconsciously. "I just felt like I needed to find you again and warn you."

"Of what?" Cuddy asked softly, a little unsure of why she was buying into any of this at all.

The man swallowed an invisible lump in his throat and exhaled softly, his breath barely visible among the ever darkening night. "Everyone you've ever know..." he began his statement slowly, still trying to find the right words, "...is...not who you think they are." He looked behind him quickly, then drew his head back towards Cuddy, as if he were an abused animal still jumpy and on constant alert. "I can't tell you how to fix this...I wish I could," his voice hitched but he continued his warning wholeheartedly, "just be careful," he could've laughed at the lack of help that bit of advise would later prove, "but remember," his voice rose in volume and intensity, "no one is real; no one can be trusted." He stressed nearly every word of his final proclamation heavily before turning without another word away from Cuddy's doorstep and withdrew back into the night from which he appeared.

Cuddy disputed with herself whether or not to call out to this stranger—to ask for more clarification, but her shock bolted her to the ground and sealed her lips from uttering any words as his figure blended into the night and disappeared from view.

Cuddy shut her door closed and locked it. Why was she now more frightened than when he had been on her doorstep? Had his words held any truth to them? Why was she in danger? Questions complicated Cuddy's mind as she tried to discern this man's intentions. He was a stranger. Her mother had always taught her not to talk to strangers. But wasn't everyone a stranger until you met them? Cuddy pondered these thoughts as she made her way down her hallway and to her bedroom. Had she even met him?—he refused to give her his name...therefore, technically he _was_ a stranger, she decided, but one trying to help her or just a crazy man who finds some sort of sick thrill in scaring people? Cuddy made it to her bedroom and into her bed. She pulled the covers across her body and turned onto her side, facing away from the center of the bed. The possibility of truth in the man's words troubled Cuddy. She wouldn't know until she found out, and that was the thing that disconcerted her the most. As Cuddy's eyes slid shut and she drifted to sleep she realized she wouldn't find any real comfort until she knew for certain... What would come of tomorrow?

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Chapter III:

"Lunch-Time Meetings"

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_Nothing seems different... _Cuddy had made it to the hospital unperturbed as opposed to yesterday and everything seemed to be right with the world. Doctors were checking in on patients, nurses were filling out charts and helping with the usual clinic traffic and House was..._not_...doing his clinic hours. _Yup, everything's just right, _thought Cuddy.

Shaking her nighttime confrontation from her mind, Cuddy headed towards her office, giving friendly nods to patients, nurses, and doctors along the way. _That man was just crazy, I should be less—_ Cuddy was awoken from her thoughts as she bumped into a solid object and almost fell to the ground. A folder full of papers fluttered down and scattered haphazardly across the ground. "I'm so sorry," Cuddy offered her apology sincerely and bent down to help retrieve the mess of papers on the ground. "I should've been paying better attention," Cuddy continued as she quickly collected the files from the ground.

"Oh, it's no problem," Dr. Cameron attempted to bend down, but Cuddy already had the papers collected and stood upright, holding them out to Cameron. "Here you go."

Cameron took the folder from Cuddy, not saying a word.

Cuddy didn't wait long for a thank you, figuring it wasn't necessary. She had been the cause of the accident and did just de-organize everything in that file of hers. Cuddy nodded politely, "Have a nice day."

Cameron stared blankly at Cuddy for a moment, then smiled slyly. "You too, Dr. Cuddy," Cameron walked past Cuddy, almost bumping into her again, and continued on her pathway to wherever she was headed before, probably the emergency room.

Cuddy looked over her shoulder curiously. Shaking off the odd confrontation, she continued the opposite way of Cameron, towards her office, no longer throwing friendly smiles to her employees on the way, because they no longer returned them.

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A knock signaled at Cuddy's door and she put her pen down, thankful for the break, "Come in!"

One of the large doors was pushed open and in came Wilson, his famous smile plastered on his face, relaxing Cuddy greatly.

"Dr. Wilson," greeted Cuddy cheerfully, happy to see a friendly face again after all the non-responsive people she had been encountering the entire day.

Wilson nodded his greeting to Cuddy and advanced towards her desk.

"What can I do for you today?" Cuddy looked towards Wilson's hands, carrying a patient's file along within them.

Wilson sat down in a chair opposite Cuddy's desk and opened the file. He rotated it one-hundred and eighty degrees to where it was facing Cuddy and she automatically turned her eyes down to it, skimming the contents carefully. "He's not responding to his treatment..." Cuddy said aloud, "so what do you intend to do now?" she asked, expecting Wilson to ask for a biopsy or other invasive procedure, but looked up when he didn't respond.

Wilson was no longer seated in the chair across from her desk. Cuddy almost jumped when she noticed Wilson's overcoming presence towering beside her. Her hand on her chest from the surprise, Cuddy let go of a short laugh. "You scared me," she continued to laugh quietly but it faded as she realized she was the only one laughing.

"I didn't mean to, I'm sorry," Wilson remained where he was, looking down over Cuddy's seated form.

Cuddy shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "So, again, what do you intend to do next?" she repeated her question, for some reason now just wanting him to leave her to her work.

After a beat of silence Wilson bent down close to Cuddy—coming to eye level with her, who fell silent at their close proximity. She had never felt uncomfortable around him before, but this was different somehow. Wilson finally spoke up, speaking quietly—there was no need to speak loudly because they were so close. "Something I should've done a long time ago," before Cuddy could react, Wilson had his lips pressed firmly against her own.

Cuddy remained as still as stone as the shock settled in at her current situation. She began to pull away, but Wilson's hand was making its way into her hair, holding her head in place. Cuddy made a muffled groan into Wilson's mouth; having the opposite effect she had intended for it; it only prompted Wilson to press on. His tongue pried for entrance into her mouth, and that's when Cuddy stood up without warning, breaking the kiss and causing Wilson to step back a few short steps.

Cuddy put her fingers to her lips still in surprise and backed far away from the strangely behaving Wilson. "Um...," Cuddy stuttered over her words, still backing away, "I'm going to take an early lunch," with no other words, Cuddy turned and grabbed her coat, practically running out of her office, leaving a stoic Wilson behind, a glazed look in his eyes, unemotional and completely silent.

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A barrier of warm air welcomed Cuddy into the small restaurant only a short walking distance from the hospital. There was no way she was eating at the hospital. Everyone was acting too weird around her and she needed desperately to get away. Shrugging her jacket from her shoulders, she scanned the restaurant for an available seat. It was fairly packed considering it was lunch hour, and Cuddy hoped for a seat—she would wait if she had to; she was definitely going to eat here no matter what if her only other option was the hospital cafeteria.

Her eyes surveyed the entire restaurant seating area until she came to the last table in the very back corner. Cuddy's hopes sank as she saw the figure sitting there eating his lunch. Defeated, Cuddy took a step to her side to take a seat in the waiting area, but stopped mid-squat. She stood up quickly and looked again towards the corner booth with the lone man occupying it. With her legs working of their own accord, Cuddy found herself taking long, deliberate strides to the table.

"What did you do?" Cuddy sat down opposite the man and stared straight into his dark brown eyes.

"I ordered the Meat Lover's sub," droned the man, seemingly annoyed by the interruption.

"You know what I'm talking about," said Cuddy, determined to get some answers from this man. "You came to my house last night, and I don't even know you, but somehow you've done something to affect everyone I know. What's wrong with them?"

The man set down his half-eaten sandwich on his plastic covered tray and used a napkin to wipe his fingers clean. "Nothing's wrong with them," began the man, "its you," he finished simply.

"There's nothing wrong with me," defended Cuddy, "everyone is acting weird all of a sudden. They're not themselves, they—"

"Do you really want my advice?" asked the man, cutting off Cuddy's rant.

Cuddy looked into the man's eyes, confused. "No," she declared strongly, "I want this to go away," she stated plainly.

"I already told you," began the man, "I wish I knew how to make it go away, but it won't..." the sadness returned to the man's eyes and face, "You may not want my advice, but please at the very least consider it. Your only hope is to leave this town, maybe even the state." Cuddy drew back in shock at the man's words, but he continued anyway, "cut off all relations with these people that you know and start a new life." Without even looking at Cuddy, the man signaled for his waiter to bring him his bill.

"Wait, what exactly is going on here?" Cuddy was desperate for any answers at all now.

"I'm sorry that I don't have the answers you may be looking for, but I can tell you what will happen—thank you," he took the bill from his waiter and slipped in a ten dollar bill, "it'll be slow and progressive, like a disease, but once it happens, there's no turning back." Cuddy was leaned forward in her chair listening to this man she had never officially met—this stranger, with attentive ears, "I've already told you how everyone you've ever met isn't who you think they are," Cuddy nodded subtly, not even noticing her action, waiting for his next words, "that wasn't entirely true. They're all still normal. The only thing that's changed is the way you perceive them." Cuddy's eyes narrowed in confusion, but he didn't clarify his statement, "It seems as if it's already started, am I right?" he didn't wait for an answer, "they begin by behaving...oddly. They may act differently, either by simply not responding to you at all, or they may make rash decisions that they never would before...but it won't be long until their behavior turns violent." The man shook his head sadly. "Please, take my advice and just leave! Trust me, okay, you don't want to be around when that happens."

"How can I trust you when I don't even know you?" Cuddy questioned, the reasonable side of her brain working.

The man smiled sadly, "_because_ you don't know me," he explained, confusing Cuddy even more. "The only people you _can_ trust now are strangers...kinda goes against everything your mom taught you as a kid, huh?" he tried a joke, but it didn't lighten the mood any. "The more you know someone the more they'll turn on you when the time comes," he said solemnly, getting up from his seat to leave the restaurant, not even needing to grab his jacket because he still had it zipped and on the whole time he was in the restaurant. He reached into his pocket and threw a tip on the table before heading towards the door.

"Wait!" Cuddy got up from her seat and quickly went to stand near the man. "What's your name?" she asked again for the third time.

The man shook his head and looked over his shoulder towards her. "I want to help you," he clarified, "I can't do that unless you respect the fact that you can't ever know who I really am." He thought for a moment. "Just call me...John."

Cuddy looked at him skeptically, "Is that not your real name?" inquired Cuddy.

"Of course it's not! Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying?" he wiped his hands over his face and exhaled slowly, calming himself. "I have to go now," he said softly. "Please consider what I've told you." He opened the door to the restaurant widely, allowing the cold air to come into the room quickly, causing everyone including Cuddy to shiver. All but the stranger, who left the restaurant into the chilly air as if there were no change in temperature at all.

There was something strange about this man, and Cuddy needed to find out why. How did he know so much?

"Hi," a cheerful waitress spoke up from behind Cuddy, lifting her from her daze, "will you be dining alone this afternoon?" she asked in her friendly, high pitched tone, gathering under her arm a menu from the light wooden podium in front of her.

Cuddy shook her head slowly, watching the man's retreating form, "no, I'm...I have to go." Cuddy left the restaurant without eating, fully intent on following this man to wherever he was headed. There was no way this man's advice was worth it, and she was intent on finding out her own solution to this...problem. She had to do it quickly though, because if he was right, things were about to go from bad to worse in a hurry.

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	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, that's really what motivates me to continue writing, so thank you so much! I hope I'm not making this too confusing, but please give it a chance. Okay that's enough of me, please enjoy this next chapter.

Disclaimer: see chapter one.

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Chapter IV:

"Follow the Leader"

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Cuddy stepped out into the cold and tightened her jacket around her body in a futile attempt to bring her body temperature back up to a comfortable level. She immediately decided she wasn't going to pursue "John" per the comfort of her heated car, but would have to endure the chase dreadfully on foot as she watched him begin walking across the street in a sort of gait that could only be described as the walk of a man on death row with no particular destination that was worth arriving at. Cuddy wondered where he was headed.

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, the warm air escaping from her lips visibly in the chilly air and counted to ten to allow some leeway to form between her and the object of her curiosity before she began to follow him. On nine-one-hundred Cuddy almost jumped from surprise as a warm hand grasped her shoulder. "What are you doing here?" Cuddy asked the question in an exasperated manner, not at all interested in his answer, but merely speaking to free herself from the adrenaline induced feeling created from his intrusion.

"When I realized you weren't in your office I decided to peruse local sandwich shops for some new lunch-time eye candy," House offered quickly, his eyes scanning Cuddy up and down much as Cuddy was familiar with.

"What about Cameron or Thirteen?" offered Cuddy uninterested.

House's face contorted into a thinking pose as he responded, "They're good for only so long," House began, "they don't have the right...assets, to satisfy my lunch-time cravings if you know what I mean." Cuddy rolled her eyes and House continued. "But then again, maybe the two of them together...I'm sure thirteen would love that."

"Not nearly as much as you would I'm sure." Cuddy's eyes ventured to her left down the street in the direction John had just recently gone. Of course, House didn't miss this smallest and usually most insignificant of movements.

"I should get back to the hospital." Cuddy turned from House and took off as inauspiciously yet as hurriedly as possible down the direction of her attention, but almost fell backward from the pressure restricting her from moving forward. Cuddy jerked her head back to see what was going on. House had her gripped firmly by the sleeve of her jacket. In a second's moment, panic combined with the stress of the day's unusual circumstances and John's forewarnings overtook Cuddy and her adrenaline once again rose. With one forceful motion, Cuddy yanked her arm away from House and he fell helplessly to the ground, his body making forceful contact with the cold, icy cement side-walk outside the diner.

A hiss of pain emanated through House's clenched teeth and his fingers similarly clenched together, scraping the sleet from the side-walk instead of wrapping around his cane, for it had been lost on his way down. "What the hell?" House worked to move himself to a less painful sitting position and ended up propped up against the brick exterior of the small diner where customers from the inside watched the scene outside curiously. "What was that for?"

Cuddy seemed to snap out of her daze and rushed to help House up. Her hand was on House's arm when he stopped her, not wanting her to know he was in too much pain to attempt to stand yet. "I'm sorry, I thought you were--" Cuddy stopped herself and took a short step away from House's slumped form.

"What?" House prompted curiously, his icy blue eyes piercing hers in a way she wished would simply stop altogether.

"Nothing..." Cuddy's mind once again returned to John, "I still have work to do," she offered lamely.

"Sure, leave a cripple out in the cold, how very noble of you." A passing old couple walked by the duo, stealing a glimpse at the sight before them, causing House to increase his volume, "I'm sorry I left the toilet seat up, please don't hit me again." House pleaded in an overly dramatic tone. The old couple didn't stop walking, but instead the old man placed his hand gently on his wife's back and they picked up their pace.

Cuddy let out a sigh and her shoulders visibly dropped a good inch. "Have a nice lunch House." Without another word Cuddy rethought her tactics and headed towards her car to make up for any lost distance between herself and John before she was too late.

--

"Have you noticed anything different about Cuddy lately?" House questioned his only friend as he attempted to steal said friend's ridiculous looking overly seasoned lunch.

"Didn't you just get back from the deli down the block from here?" Wilson asked, shifting in his chair across from House's desk, shielding his lunch from House's prying hands.

"That doesn't mean I can't still steal your food," House explained as if this were obvious. "Stop evading the question—have you noticed anything different about Cuddy?"

Wilson shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, what are her breasts getting larger or something?"

"Dr. Wilson!" House began dramatically, "are you objectifying our boss? How chauvinistic of you, no wonder your wives kept leaving you." House took advantage of Wilson's brief pause to steal a bite of his food. "But seriously," he continued, chewing contently on the stolen morsel of food, "she seems...abstracted."

"Well actually, now that you mention it, I visited her earlier this morning and she ran out of her office to take an early lunch like she just saw a ghost or something." Wilson recollected the encounter as he put down his food and concentrated on the memory. "It didn't make any sense. I asked for authorization for a relatively common procedure when she seemed to...black out for a second, and when she came to she was almost a different person."

--

Cuddy cut off her engine a block away from John as he disappeared into an old building. She got out of the car and walked the rest of the distance to the old brick lined building, still careful to maintain her stealth and opened the heavy door, hearing it creak on it's loose hinges. She stepped inside and almost jumped as the door shut loudly behind her, causing an echo to bounce off the tall walls all around her. The only feature in the room with her was a tall spiral staircase. She could still hear John's foot steps climbing up the building. She followed.

By the time her heel encased feet were screaming at her to stop the brutal punishment of the stair ascension, the sound of another door being opened caused Cuddy to stop in her tracks. She could only assume that John had finally gotten off onto one of the floors above. Cuddy continued up two more flights of stairs and stopped on the eighth floor. The door was still swaying slightly, telling Cuddy that this was her stop. Tentatively placing her hand on the doorknob, Cuddy opened the door and started down the long hallway. It appeared as if she were in a low class apartment building. She let her eyes travel to the end of the hallway and panic rose from her stomach and spread through her body as she didn't catch sight of John anywhere ahead of her. Before Cuddy could turn or asses her situation further, a voice broke the silence and exploded the panic within her.

"Why are you following me?" Cuddy managed to withhold her yelp of surprise and jumped at least two feet backwards, her hands over her heart from the shock.

Cuddy remained silent, not able to find a reasonable answer she thought would satisfy him. After a moment too long of the uncomfortable silence, she decided to say something anyway, if only to break the silence. "Why do you know so much?" If she couldn't find an answer to his question, she would make her own.

John took a deep breath and released it, shaking his head as he replied. "Come with me."

--

It was pure curiosity that overruled Cuddy's instinctive urge to not follow this man, but there was no turning back she decided as she stepped foot into this man's apartment.

"Would you like something to drink?" John offered this as if they were old pals simply enjoying an evening together, but the lack of emotion in his voice revoked any sense of camaraderie.

"No thanks."

John nodded his head, "I didn't think so. You're here because you want to know more about what's going on."

Cuddy nodded once, making her way into his small living room to analyze the portrait on top of the fireplace, noticing also that the fireplace wasn't lit and hadn't been for quite some time despite the chilling cold atmosphere residing in his apartment.

"My wife."

Cuddy jumped again as the rough yet soft voice broke out from directly behind her. Cuddy placed the photograph back on its place atop the fireplace and sidestepped herself away from it and John.

"My ex-wife actually." John went over to his leather couch and sat down on it.

"What do you want to know?"

"Just start from the beginning." Cuddy stated simply.

John nodded and gestured toward and adjacent armchair, "you might want to sit down. This might take a while."

He began before Cuddy even took a seat. "I was your everyday normal guy. I had a wife, a house, a car, a dog...I was happy." Cuddy listened on silently as she made herself comfortable on the leather armchair. "I was driving home from the grocery store with my wife one Sunday afternoon when the weather took a turn for the worse. And not in the usual way either. The sky darkened and I immediately presumed it would be followed by rain or lightning or something, even though the forecast was clear and sunny skies the whole week, but this was different. The sky turned...red—not like a sunset red, but an ominous type that would make the average person shiver." He paused slightly before continuing. "I lost control of the car...I didn't hit anything, I didn't swerve suddenly, it wasn't icy...I think it might have been the wind." Cuddy narrowed her eyes in recollection of the unnaturally strong winds that had been present when she had first met John. "I know it sounds impossible, but the wind was strong enough in that one moment to sideswipe my car directly into the side of a building in half a second. Half of the car was totaled...the side my wife was sitting on was crushed completely. The first thing I did was call nine-one-one after my wife didn't respond to me. After that everything is kind of a blur. If it was possible the sky got darker, as if the sun stopped shining completely and all I could see in that moment was the color of my wife's blood. I think the windows on the car shattered and after that I woke up by my wife's bedside at the hospital."

Cuddy was leaning forward on the edge of the armchair. "What happened to her?" she inquired softly.

"She lived." he said shortly. John also sat up on the sofa and rubbed his hands down his face. "I was by her bedside for the longest time." The sun was setting outside and darkness was beginning to set in. "I'll give you the condensed version." John announced as he took in realization of the time. "All the while I was sitting by her bedside it turns out she was never really there. For one week that seemed like years my life changed completely. Much like what you're going to be experiencing, my friends and family began to act strangely. After one day I realized they all wanted me dead. They were going out of their way to kill me and I didn't know why. Even my wife. What was weird was that everyone I knew wanted me dead, but complete strangers to me ignored me and let me be, they were even polite and cordial in most cases, but once we actually met, they would lash out at me."

"But why?" Cuddy's curiosity had reached an all time high.

"I still don't know." He answered dejectedly, "but when I met you that day on the street—when I was bloodied and bruised and helpless...I think that when I met you, whatever happened to me went away and turned on you."

Cuddy was shocked out of words, visibly stiffening in the chair, watching the apologetic look flash across his empty eyes as he continued his story.

"I was met again by my wife shortly after...and she talked to me like the whole thing never happened. She didn't recall the car crash and she certainly wasn't trying to kill me. Now, I didn't mention to her what happened to me, or that she was trying to kill me because I didn't want her to think I was crazy, but from then on out that whole night while she was in bed with me I couldn't stop envisioning her with that knife in her hand and that empty look of malice in her eyes..." He shook himself from his memory induced trance and summed his life up for Cuddy in a nutshell, "I filed for divorce and here I am. She has my house, she has my dog, but at least she doesn't have my life."

"So the whole thing was just a hallucination?" Cuddy was beginning to doubt the validity of this man's claims; it just seemed too unreal.

John shook his head deliberately. "It was real, I know it was, but as it turns out, my life was going on as usual the whole time I envisioned it as something it wasn't. When I bruised, I ached; when I was cut, I bled...if it didn't stop when it did, I know I would've died. I don't know what this is, but it's cost me my marriage, my friendships, my house, my car, everything I had—even my sanity. I don't trust anyone enough anymore to call them 'friend'."

"So how do I stop this from happening?" Cuddy asked the question to John and herself, but she didn't receive an answer. The question reverberated throughout the semi-empty room and all she got was silence accompanied by a hopeless stare from John that told her all she needed to know. They had no idea.

--

Cuddy left John's building at a loss for words. Her mind was in a constant rotation of thought and she doubted whether or not to trust this man who wouldn't even give her his real name. She could wait it out and see what happened, but was it worth the risk? These thoughts continued to race in Cuddy's mind like a runaway train as she unlocked her car and stepped inside closing the door behind her. She placed the key in the ignition and was about to rotate it when a rough hand covered her mouth, forcing her head back into the headrest ruthlessly. Cuddy screamed into the hand, but the only sound that escaped were her muffled groans of desperation. In a frantic attempt to free herself Cuddy bit the hand over her mouth as hard as she could and used her left hand to open her side of the door while her right hand swung blindly behind her, making contact with a hard object, probably her attacker's head, causing him to release his hold on her long enough so she could flee from the death-trap her car had become.

By the time Cuddy had successfully made her way out of the car she heard the passenger side door open. The cold night air of outside rushed into her lungs swiftly, causing her to become even more breathless than her fear had rendered her. This caused Cuddy to run faster, as if she were in tennis shoes rather than heels, but she stood no chance in outrunning her anonymous attacker. The same rough hand grabbed her shoulder after Cuddy took only three steps and took complete control over her. She was pushed into the face of a building, almost knocking the air out of her already struggling lungs, effectively pinning her to her place against the hard surface with no way out. The attacker looked her in the eyes and Cuddy's heart dropped to the soles of her shoes. There was only one thought that evaded her mind in that moment and it was clearer than she had ever felt anything before. She was going to die.

--

TBC... (please review)


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Wow, thanks so much for the reviews guys, it's really inspiring for me. So thanks to you, here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: see chapter one.

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Chapter V:

"Personal Vendetta"

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Cuddy closed her eyes tightly, feeling the tears form behind her eyes as her attacker used one hand to wrap around her neck and the other to reach behind his back. Cuddy could only imagine his hand reappearing with a gun or a knife—she didn't want to know which.

If there was one thing Cuddy always imagined of her death it was that it would be peaceful, or at the very least, on her own terms and conditions. She wasn't afforded these luxuries now—the only thing she could do now was spare herself from watching her own demise.

Her body was becoming weaker by the moment; the lack of oxygen to her already cold lungs was causing her to become lightheaded and she felt her knees collapse beneath her, the only force holding her up now was the cold, rough hands of her attacker. She now only hoped she would suffocate to death before he could take any pleasure in killing her himself.

Darkness was all Cuddy could see with her eyes closed, but the sounds all around her she could hear as clearly as her rapid heartbeat pounding in her ears. She could barely hear her own panicked gasps for air, she could clearly hear her attacker's heavy breathing, she could regrettably hear the click of metal as her attacker undid the safety on his gun, but the last sound she heard was the sound of an engine.

The darkness Cuddy saw behind her closed lids became a bright orange, causing Cuddy to open her eyes against her own will. Directly in front of her in the darkness of the night behind her attacker's head shone two bright headlights.

Her attacker turned in surprise, loosening his grip around Cuddy's neck in the process. Before Cuddy could react, her attacker let go of her altogether, tossing her aside and to the ground forcefully before turning his attention to the occupant of the intruding vehicle. He took long deliberate strides towards the vehicle and lifted his gun yielding hand, pointing the weapon directly into the driver's side of the vehicle. Cuddy tried her best to stand again as she watched the scene play out in front of her.

The driver of the vehicle turned on the bright lights and the man held up his arm to shield his eyes from the visual assault. The tires of the car screeched to life and propelled forward, taking only mere seconds to make contact with the man's body, tossing him over the top of the car so he was sprawled out on the hood. The car reversed suddenly, causing Cuddy's attacker to fall off the hood of the car and onto the pavement below, leaving him motionless.

The car redirected itself, pulling up next to Cuddy quickly. The passenger side door opened and Cuddy was met eye to eye with the last person she could have ever imagined.

"Get in!" House pushed the rest of the door completely open and leaned back into his side of the car as he demanded Cuddy to enter the vehicle. Cuddy stumbled onto her feet in one swift motion she hadn't thought herself capable of with her insufficient amount of energy left and got into House's car, shutting the door after her. House drove off quickly, thankful that Cuddy's attacker was still incapacitated on the pavement.

With panted breaths and the feeling of death slowly dissipating in syncopation with her slowing heart rate, Cuddy glanced in the rearview mirror to gaze at her attacker as they drove away. She couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere. The moment she opened her eyes, the headlights illuminated her attacker's face, but she just couldn't place a name or situation with it.

"Are you okay?" House's voice brought Cuddy back to her current situation.

Cuddy opened her mouth to respond, but found it difficult to form a verbal reply—the only sound that was emitted from her open mouth was hardly a word at all but more of a slightly muffled choking sound. Cuddy lifted her hand to her throat and placed her hand gently on the exact position her attacker's hand had been only moments ago. Instead of attempting to talk again she simple nodded her head once, her hand still gently caressing her throat in a wasted attempt to soothe the area that was undeniably already turning a deep purple as she did so.

House wanted to ask her what that was all about—if she was just being mugged or if she had someone actually trying to kill her. He wanted to know why. There was no doubt about his curiosity, but judging by the unfamiliar and unsettling look of fear in his boss's eyes he let it go. For now. He would remain quiet and drive her home until she was up to talking about it. This was unfamiliar to him and he didn't know what else to do.

Stealing a glance at Cuddy as they were stalled by a stoplight, he soon realized that this was more than a simple mugging. The factual evidence made that clear—her car was still there, he took no money or jewelry from her, and of course the big one—he had a brutal grip around her neck and a gun to her face, whereas most muggers do their deed and take off as quickly as possible. This left House with the only option that this person had a personal vendetta against the seemingly innocent Lisa Cuddy. But despite all the contextual evidence pointing away from a wrong-time-wrong-place mugging, the real clue that let House know something was definitely up was the look on Cuddy's face and the terrified, confused, vacant gaze in her eyes.

--

The entire drive to Cuddy's home had been occupied with silence, apart from House's insistence that he take Cuddy to the hospital to examine her for any probably injuries. Now the two sat silently in House's car parked in Cuddy's driveway. Neither was comfortable breaking the silence, but it was apparent to House that Cuddy would not be the one to do so.

"Come on." House wasted no time with small talk, but decided to instead take action. It would be easier this way. For him, actions were always more powerful than words.

House got out of the car, expecting Cuddy to do the same, and sighed with a mixture of exasperation and dejection on Cuddy's behalf as she remain frozen in the car.

House walked over to Cuddy's side of the car and opened the door for her. "Come on Cuddy, you're home now, it's okay."

Cuddy looked up at House as he outstretched his left hand to her, offering assistance. Cuddy narrowed her eyes and exited the car herself. She walked past House without uttering a sound and strode briskly to her front door. House narrowed his eyes alike to Cuddy and followed her up to her doorstep, causing Cuddy to walk faster.

"Cuddy!" House grabbed Cuddy by the shoulder as she frantically fumbled to open her front door. At this contact Cuddy dropped her keys and spun around quickly as if scalded, shoving House's hand off of her shoulder and backing herself into her front door.

At Cuddy's eccentric reaction House took a step back. "Cuddy, it's okay." He stepped forward again, causing Cuddy to reflexively tighten her muscles. He spoke softer. "Everything's okay now."

Cuddy closed her eyes and shook her head tightly. "No it's not."

Cuddy's voice was slightly shaky and House had to step even closer to hear her clearly.

Cuddy held her hand out in a 'stop' gesture, but House didn't stop until his chest met her hand. "Please, just give me some space okay?" Cuddy pleaded in a nervous tone.

House's expression could have been confused for hurt, but quickly changed to confusion. "What exactly was that?" he asked, referring to her earlier situation.

"I don't know." Cuddy turned again after reaching for her keys on the ground and unlocked her front door. "I just can't be around you right now alright?" Cuddy stepped into her home and attempted to close the door behind her, but House's hand gripped onto the edge of the wooden door frame.

"At least let me examine your injuries," House offered.

Cuddy shook her head fervently, "I can do it myself."

Before House could protest, or examine the look of dread in her eyes as she spoke those final words the door was slammed in his face, almost catching his fingers in between the barrier separating himself and the distraught Cuddy.

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Chapter VI:

"Knock, Knock, Who's there?"

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Cuddy leaned against the door as House retreated on the other side, a confused look adorning his face that Cuddy was not able to see. With trembling hands, Cuddy locked her front door and scanned her house quickly and efficiently, making sure all possible locks were engaged and all curtains were closed.

After checking all the closets to be extra cautious, Cuddy made her way to her bedroom. After changing into a loose t-shirt and sweat pants, Cuddy crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck.

She always found it intriguing that the simple action of hiding under your covers could make one somehow feel safer, as if someone could walk into her bedroom with a gun and all she would have to do is pull the covers over her body and the bullets wouldn't be able to penetrate the comforting sheets.

Just as this thought crossed her mind, a rattling noise pierced through her ears. Cuddy's hands clenched tightly onto the edges of her sheets as another noise resounded about Cuddy's home.

Taking a deep breath, Cuddy threw the covers from her body and walked slowly into her living room. She peered around every corner and stepped as lightly as possible until she was standing directly in front of the front door, feeling exposed and uneasy.

Just as Cuddy was about to turn away and head back into the warmth of her bed, a clear and heavy knock rang deliberately across the house.

Cuddy's blood turned cold as a shiver overtook her entire body at once. The knock rang out again, followed by another, and another.

Cuddy took a breath that didn't seem to completely fill her lungs and released it as she stepped towards the door, still letting out the long breath and forgetting to breathe yet again after all oxygen was expelled from her body.

Cuddy's hand shook as she grabbed hold of the doorknob. The knocking grew louder and more frequent. The sheer violent manner of it that it had malformed into caused Cuddy to release the door knob as if it was on fire and she jumped back.

The knocking turned into banging, then pounding, then hammering. Cuddy wasted no time as she turned and ran away from the door. She grabbed the phone from her living room on her way and ran with it towards her bedroom, shutting the door and locking it behind her.

Cuddy's hands trembled as her fingers sought out the three simple buttons.

A sudden loud crack followed by a bang split through Cuddy's ears as her front door was kicked in, fractured into several pieces and collapsed to the ground effortlessly.

Cuddy's heart dropped like a person diving from a tower on a broken bungee cord. She dialed the three numbers and waited for help as she heard heavy footsteps approach her location.

--

TBC... (reviews?)


	4. Chapter 4

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Survival Instinct

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A reassuring voice emerged from the opposite line of her telephone and quickly inquired to the nature of her emergency. Cuddy's voice caught in her throat and she threw the phone across the room in frustration of her failed vocal chords and the trembling of her hands.

The footsteps were increasing in volume and intensity along with Cuddy's heartbeat and she wasted no time in ripping the covers from her bed and moving mechanically towards her bedroom window. Her heart pounded in her ears, the sheer volume of it disabling her from connecting with any of her other senses. She didn't flinch from the cold breeze of outside as she opened her window, nor did she feel any strain as she launched her entire neat and proper bed set through the opening of her window frame. All she could do was concentrate on the battle of dominance between the sound of her heartbeat and the sound of the intruder approaching her bedroom.

If anyone were to have asked Cuddy a mere two days ago whether or not anything could have encouraged her to jump from her bedroom window onto the rough earth beneath, she would have hesitated to respond. In the present moment however instinct overpowered all thought processes—cause and effect, pros and cons, actions and consequences—everything except the natural born survival instinct.

A millisecond after choosing flight over fight, Cuddy dove from her window headfirst and held her breath as she awaited contact with the ground beneath her.

As her older brother had once attempted to teach her in explanation of his antics Cuddy has once labeled dangerous and stupid, Cuddy reached out to the fast approaching ground hands first—straight out in front of her, met contact with the ground on them, then rolled as steadily as she could from her shoulder to her opposite hip.

It hurt less than she had expected—much less than it would have had she landed flat and risked breaking a bone, but enough to know she executed it incorrectly. _'Make sure you land on the right part of your shoulder, not your neck'_, he would tell her.

An image of the eldest Cuddy child rolling from a dumpster onto the ground after he spoke these words and a small girl watching on in amazement flashed across Cuddy's eyes. The imaged vanished quickly however as her mind focused on the more pressing matter at hand.

Cuddy must have clumsily rolled two or three complete times with her given momentum and she swayed heavily as she stood up, her feet still automatically placing themselves one in front of the other, in a pace much faster than she had ever ran of her own accord.

She didn't have the audacity or boldness to look behind her as she continued running to nowhere in particular. Her body had never operated this long on autopilot until now and she felt as if for this moment she were separated from herself and could see from an objective point of view, herself running—all the fear so blatantly obvious even a stray cat on the sidewalk could read and interpret it.

The background noise became clearer as her heartbeat slowed and her pace steadied and declined. She eventually stopped in her tracks as realization dawned on her that she was no longer being pursued and she dropped her head to look down at her slightly bleeding bare feet on the concrete under her. Police sirens resonated through the air about a block behind her and she began to walk again—uncertain and still slightly afraid.

She wouldn't walk back to her home. The intruder might still be there...and the cops...

She had been acquainted with a few cops since she had lived in the neighborhood and had even met with them at the hospital on business terms a few times. Always striving to be the best person she could, she had even come close to calling one or two of these cops friends. But now...

The security naturally entailed in the words 'police officer' were now negated by the new coupling of the words 'friend' and 'dangerous'.

Cuddy continued to walk in the opposite direction of her home, clutching her arms around her torso in a desperate search of warmth and safety. Where do you go when your safest places become tainted by insecurity and danger?

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Cuddy's endless walk tainted with paranoid alertness and undeserving panic led her in time to a newly familiar apartment building miles away from her home the equivalent in time of the appearance of a few hundred stars filling the dark night sky. During the beginning of Cuddy's mindless journey down the empty and threatening streets Cuddy had remotely observed the presence of only one or two stars. Her bare feet had also felt a bitter cold and tenderness that had multiplied by as much as the stars had grown to enumerate by this time.

Cuddy's right hand unwrapped from the insufficiently warm cotton material of her left sleeve to grasp at the door handle and pushed open the door with a painfully intrusive creaking noise. Like the safety latch of an airplane's emergency exit being opened mid-flight, the pressure of the dry warm air from inside the building and the stark chill from outside collided and sent a powerful and long suppressed shiver down Cuddy's spine which descended all the way down to her swollen and bruised feet, flipping the switch in Cuddy's brain to reignite the feeling of pain within them.

She retraced her steps up to the fourth floor and now stood before apartment number four-twenty-six, the fading letters displaying themselves almost invisibly upon the dark door. She contemplated knocking on the door and lifted her right hand to complete the motion, already in a fisted position from the cold, but stopped as she heard movement from within the room through the paper thin walls of the old building.

Cuddy's breathing slowed automatically as she leaned closer to the door and strained to hear more. There were sounds of drawers being opened and closed and then the sound of boots hitting the ground as the occupant most likely paced back and forth. All sounds ceased abruptly and Cuddy's senses were on high alert as she pressed her ear against the outside of the door. With one unexpected sound Cuddy jumped back almost three feet—stunned in a combination of speechlessness, confusion, dread, and panic. It was a sound undeniable and all too real. It was a piercing metallic sound demanding sheer force and power; heavy yet quick; a statement and proclamation of endings that reverberated enduringly within Cuddy's ears. It was the last thing Cuddy wanted to hear, and the last thing John would ever hear. It was a gunshot.

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The police sirens caught House's attention as he pulled away from Cuddy's home and turned on a street towards his place a couple blocks down. Being in the medical profession, the ambulances that followed did not faze him. What did though was the fact that they were following a set of police cars the opposite direction of himself—the direction to Cuddy's house.

Considering the circumstances only momentarily, House made a u-turn and followed the blaring red and blue lights.

His fears escalated as the police cars stopped directly in front of Cuddy's home. He was out of the car and headed toward her door almost faster than the officers themselves but was halted by an officer of short stature and a clean, shaved head.

"Sir, I need you step back." The man offered House no other option as he held his hand out in a go-no-further gesture and directed House all the way back to the sidewalk.

"What's going on?" House questioned. It was the only question he was able to form coherently after deciding he would only complicate matters if he pushed this uniformed man to the ground and bolted past him.

"We don't know yet sir," he answered briefly, then added, "are you a family member?"

"I'm a doctor," House answered, earning some of his dignity and authority back, "I'm a colleague, we work together." His implication of Cuddy's authority as well was implied with their association and he calmed himself down a bit, trying to maintain an air of collectedness so that the officer would not brush him off as a nosy neighbor, but perhaps employ him into the situation.

His word choice seemed to have the desired effect and the officer glanced over his shoulder at the house. House took the same opportunity and noticed for the first time that the front door had been broken in. He tried to remember if the cops had done this to get in and read it in the face of the bald man in front of him that they had not. Thinking the same as House, the man signaled with a nod of the head for House to follow him and they entered the house together, House walking in front of the man almost in a jog.

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Hidden Treasures

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Her instincts kicking in and overpowering her fear to run in the opposite direction of the shot, Cuddy opened the door to find it unlocked and stepped inside quickly. At first glance, the body she was expecting to see sprawled out on the floor in a pool of blood was not there. Her heart was still pounding heavily, but most of the excitement was diminishing.

The sound did not seem to stir the rest of the building as there were no residents peering out into the halls or even any other outside sound at all. Either John was the only occupant of this apartment building or things like this happened all the time and no one bothered to pay any attention or get themselves involved.

Cuddy decided to take her time then as she realized that no one would have called the cops and she would be alone in the room until she found John. If he was still here at all.

A cold breeze struck her right arm and she turned to discover the draft coming from an open window. Slowly she walked over to it, feeling an extraordinary sense of dread pump through her veins in cold blood. She looked through the window and then stuck her head slightly out of it, peering at the ground. Her breath hitched and she stepped away from the window immediately. Behind the bushes lining the side of the building and four floors down was John's disjointed body. It was partially hidden by the leaves of the bushes and the darkness of the night, but Cuddy knew for certain, even though she had only seen him a few times, that it was his body laying motionless on the ground.

The doctor in her told her to rush to him and examine him, but the realist in her told her he was gone. He had shot himself and made sure to dispose of his remains to the world outside probably by shooting himself while lying halfway out the open window.

Cuddy put her hands to her face and paced until she fell into the same chair she had sat in once before. She was shaking but she couldn't feel it. She imagined she was crying too, but did not know for sure.

Standing up on shaky legs, numbed by the cold, Cuddy started to aimlessly roam through John's small apartment. The reason she ended up at John's doorstep was unknown to her. He was still a stranger, yet the only person Cuddy felt safe around. And now he was dead.

She soon found herself in the opposite corner of the room near the fireplace. Beside it was a bookshelf, adorned only by five or six worn in books. The answers she had hoped to find felt as if they would never be uncovered now, but her curiosity and faint remainder of hope she held onto led her to this bookshelf.

One soft covered book with a leather back stood out to her among the rest and she reached for it, feeling the cracks in the leather between her fingers as she took it back to her chair and sat down with it.

She opened the book to the first page and recognized immediately by the smeared ink and neat cursive handwriting that this was no book, but a journal. The first page was dated five months ago—July fourth. Against Cuddy's usual instinct to preserving someone's privacy, Cuddy began to read the first entry.

_EJ, _

_Sorry I missed your birthday. I know I said I'd be there, but unfortunately I got caught up with some things at home. I hope you understand. I did get you a present though. Yes, this is it. I know it doesn't seem like much and you don't like to write, but I figured you needed something to write your thoughts down in. I notice a lot that there are moments where you don't say much, but I can see you want to say something. I don't know what you're thinking, and I guess I never will, but this is just for you. _

_I'm doing fine over here and I miss you a lot! I hope you and Laura are doing good too! I'll see you when I come down for thanksgiving, I can't wait!_

_Your friend, _

_Kath_

_Oh, and don't just ignore this book, you better use it! ha-ha, see you soon EJ!_

Cuddy flipped to the next page of the book, noticing that the handwriting became much sloppier, and the ink more smeared and uneven. _Looks like he did use the book_, thought Cuddy. Not bothering to read the rest of the entries Cuddy flipped idly though the book until a loose sheet a paper fell to the floor and landed at her feet. Cuddy closed the book and set it to her side as she reached down to pick up the fallen paper.

The first word caught her attention and she read on.

_Dr. Cuddy,_

_If you're reading this now then I'm already gone. I apologize that I couldn't be there to help you, but I know it would have been useless considering I don't know how to help you. What you found, however, is my journal. I considered burning it before I thought of you and realized that this might help you more than I ever could alone. _

_I never wrote a word in it that I thought would be read by another soul except my own, but the embarrassment this might cause will not matter now that I am dead. Read whatever you wish that you feel might give you the answers you're searching for. The only thing I have left to offer to you is my past, contained within these pages. _

_Maybe the reason my curse was passed to you is because we share something in common. This is why I tore nothing out of this journal. I want you to be able to know everything about me, and by reading this you will soon know more about me as a stranger than anyone I ever held close to me in my lifetime._

_You must be here because you have nowhere else to go, so if you choose to stay in New Jersey, take my apartment as a refuge for yourself. You probably know by now that your home is no longer safe, but you should be secure here. If there is one good thing I've ever done with my life, I hope it is in helping you. From the moment we met on the street that evening I could tell that you were a good person. You don't deserve this, so feel free to take all I have to protect yourself._

_I hope you find your answers, and are freed sooner than I was. Be careful, and I wish you the best always and forever._

_Oh yes, I regret we couldn't do this sooner, but now the consequences are over. My name is Elijah James Cornelius. Nice to meet you doctor Cuddy. I'm positive if we had more time, we would have made great friends. Maybe one day we'll meet again, but not too soon hopefully._

_Good luck, doctor Cuddy. _

_Your friend,_

_EJ_


	5. Chapter 5

Cuddy passed the small book back and forth between her hands as her thoughts raced for dominance. One question in particular seemed to persist over and over again, standing in the forefront of every other thought—a simple question transformed into an inquiry analogous to the meaning of life.

_Now what?_

A persistent urge gnawed at her to go descend the stairs of the building and examine John's body.

_John..._

That was the name she knew him as, and the name that was being spoken to her from the incoming breeze of the window over and over again with each gust of frighteningly bitter air. It was as if she could feel him there, southward the window, calling out to her; telling her to heed his earlier advice and run far, far away to a place where no one knew her name.

Cuddy stood and shut the window in one swift fluid movement from the chair to the wall and the voices hushed. Quietly returning to the cold, leather armchair, she picked up the journal once more, intent on finding more about Elijah and forgetting about John.

XXXXX

From the looks of it the situation was obvious. House connected the pieces together quicker than the other officers were able to tie their shoe laces. Someone had forced their entrance into Cuddy's home, followed her to her bedroom, and...

Cuddy jumped out her bedroom window. Certainty arose within House and quelled the discomfort in his stomach. The intruder was nowhere to be found, but neither was Cuddy.

As long as she wasn't curled up dead in the bushes, then House was satisfied with the hope that she had managed to escape.

House looked out the window. From the directionality of the mess of sheets atop the dew covered grass House was able to store a file away in his mind of which direction Cuddy had most likely ran.

He withdrew from the window in search of warmth, but the stiff, frozen feeling did not dissipate from his insides. He needed to find Cuddy.

XXXXX

After a thorough examination of the apartment revealed nothing but a lead pipe beside an uncomfortable coil spring bed, a dark pair of sunglasses, and a refrigerator stocked with a loaf of frozen bread, a half empty bottle of red wine, and an unopened jar of peanut butter Cuddy returned to the chair next to the fireplace.

She took a nervous breath as she picked up the journal, ruffled through the pages like it was a flip-book, and began to read an entry somewhere near the middle.

_Something has happened to me. It has to be me. Laura would never try to hurt me like that. I was glad she was alive, but now...is it her? Is it really her?  
The doctors say her brain functions are normal but _...

The writing abruptly stopped and Cuddy wondered briefly what had taken his attentions elsewhere. As her thoughts wandered, she turned the page.

_I feel like a prisoner in this old run-down apartment. The pipes are leaking even though the water pressure is barely existent and I think the heater is broken. I tried to use the fireplace to warm the room, but the flames are as cold as a flag pole in mid winter. I touched the flames and they burned my hands with a bitter cold. And now here I am, shivering beside a frighteningly cold fireplace writing in this journal as if it would revert my life back to some sence of normalcy; into a world where tragedies didn't happen, marraiges held strong, and fires were hot._

_In a way I feel like a kid again. I'm living in a make believe world where anything can happen. I used to fantasize as a child, but I never imagined I'd be so tired, cold, and alone..._

_I left Laura after she turned on me with that kitchen knife. Her eyes never held so much malice--even when she accused me of cheating on her with Katherine. But those weren't her eyes... So here I am now. _

_This God-forsaken shell of an apartment cost me ninety-nine dollars a month. Although I quit my job and left with not a final paycheck, but a series of plum colored and saucer shaped bruises, I don't think I'll be struggling to pay rent. I haven't seen the old man who runs this place in days. From the whispers I hear through the paper-thin walls he passed away... that could explain the musky sour smell on the first floor...I wonder how many people have died here...if I will be one of them._

Cuddy felt a shiver overtake her body from the inside out. She set the journal down and rubbed her hands together, creating a friction that only intensified the frozen feeling of her fingertips.

She took a deep breath as she contemplated what she was supposed to find within these pages and sank further into the cold leather as she closed her eyes to dismiss the onset of tears. Was she bound to this place for the rest of her days? Eventually she would have to find food. Wine, bread, and peanut butter could only sustain her for so long. But if a trip to the super-market meant gambling her life away at the likely chance she would encounter someone she knew... She couldn't risk it.

Cuddy glanced down at the journal. She was so cold. Now eyeing the fireplace like a hungry lioness, Cuddy stood to her feet and opened a small end table to the left of the fireplace. Cuddy greedily withdrew a set of matches and took one out, igniting it. With a shaky wave of her arm, the match was flung into the fireplace atop a heavy log of wood already located within the fireplace.

Cuddy crooked her neck to have her eyes fall upon the journal once again. What was he saying about the fire again?

A hopeful flame rose upon the log and creeped out from under it, growing larger and brighter with each passing second. Cuddy lifted her hands against the flames to catch a wave of warmth, but when no such feeling came, her brow furrowed and she stepped closer. Cuddy knelt down to get closer to the flames still and drew her face dangerously close to the flying embers. Cuddy's thoat became dry as she experimentally and slowly extended her arm into the flames. She bit her lip and blocked the tears that she may or may not have been releasing. After a second of feeling absolutely nothing on her skin as she sifted her hand through the red-orange flames Cuddy became overcome with emotion. With a shout of anger Cuddy released her frustration and slammed her now fisted hand into the side of the inner fireplace.

The scraping sound of metal against brick startled Cuddy and a now gleaming piece of metal threw Cuddy back in shock. Cuddy breathed in hard as the pulse in her neck became less violent and she stared disbelievingly into the fireplace through the flames. Swaying softly at the end of a strong rubber band was a handgun.

The rubber quickly disintegrated and the gun fell into the flames with a thunk. It beckoned Cuddy to come near and she did so without knowing. Without hesitation, Cuddy reached deep into the fire to retrieve the deadly object, now shaking on her hands and knees.

XXXXX

House drove slowly down the street, ignoring the blaring car horns behind him. He needed to go slow in order to thoroughly scan the visible area for any sign of Cuddy. He was headed in the right direction, but didn't know how far to go, or how far Cuddy had made it.

He stopped in the alleyway he recalled finding Cuddy the night before, struggling for her life against the rage of an anonymous stranger. He put the car in park, grabbed his cane, and began the rest of his search on foot.

Around the corner he inspected an abandoned looking building with a green door. It looked no more suspicious than any of the other buildings, but the disrupted bushes lining the side of the tall wall caught his attention. As he made his way toward the bushes, a familiar yet unwelcome smell grew more and more pungent.

"Ah," House recoiled. "Damn..."

He looked around him, then up the path the man probably traveled to land in such an awkward position. He noticed the window was open.

XXXXX

She didn't know how she would, but she knew she wanted to.

In order to live, she would need to stock up on the necessities--food, soap, toilet paper... some way to keep warm.

Already afraid to show her face in public, the task would be harder done than said. It was the prime time to accomplish anything that needed to be done, before things became any worse--it was late and there wouldn't be many people out and about at this hour, so retrieving Elijah's sunglasses, and now equipped with a dangerous form of likely illegal protection, she made her way to the door and out the building.

XXXXX

"Cuddy?" House squinted his eyes as though this action would somehow grant him night vision.

The figure turned around, verifying House's suspicions, causing him to call out louder. "Cuddy!"

Surprisingly enough to House, she turned and began to run at an incredibly frantic pace like a terrified animal fleeing from a predator.

"Cuddy! It's me, House! Wait!" Damning his leg for his inability to run after her, he sped as quickly as he could to his car.

The head lights lit Cuddy's path as the car followed behind her and she ran even faster on her still bare feet.

"Cuddy!" House's car pulled up and drove next to her. Realizing she stood no chance outrunning an engine powered machine, she stopped.

Repeating his earlier action, House reached over and opened the passenger door, beckoning her to get in.

House sighed and turned off the car before getting out upon Cuddy's stationary figure standing statuesque in the darkness.

"Let me help you," House approached Cuddy slowly, noticing her unusual edginess—a trait not usually contingent with the woman now standing in front of him, a fact which bred the beginnings of a practical fear in him.

Cuddy took an uneven step backward, her hand reaching for something House could not see in the darkness.

"Whatever's happening now," started House, "we'll get though it." He attempted to calm her, feeling the awkwardness as the comforting words passed over his lips and registered in his own ears. He'd never seen her so scared before. He'd be willing to shed his cold front for a moment if it would bring her back to her usual vibrant self.

Cuddy narrowed her eyes at the man in front of her. Although his actions weren't hostile, they strayed from his usual attitude to her. Elijah said her friends and acquaintances would act differently, but he also said they would do so before they progressed to violence. She knew from experience the violence had already begun. If this was House's way of showing violence, she had nothing to be afraid of, she reasoned. She retracted her hand from its iron clad grip on the handle of an object she was too unfamiliar with and with a weakened body and mind, allowed House to embrace her.

XXXXX

A/N: Okay, so the ending of this chapter is different from the rest, agreed? Although Cuddy isn't alone now, the dangers are still present. Soon she'll discover if and why House is immune to these deadly effects, and she will be forced to find a 'cure' or a way out before things become too serious to handle. Stick around alright, and tell me your thoughts.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: sorry it's so short, I actually forgot where I was going with this and what had happened before so I understand if you have too. Please read and enjoy! I'm not giving up!

XXXXX

She allowed him to hold her as they sat on the floor together in the structurally disintegrating apartment. There was only the one chair, and insisting on the intimate pose—neither knew who initiated it, they were growing stiff on the floor. House's bad leg was extended forward with his other bent at the knee, creating a shelf for Cuddy's arms; also allowing her to press her face against his chest.

Cuddy shivered and House began to reanimate the slow up and down movement of his hand over her arm in an attempt to warm her. Cuddy tensed at the action. It was unfamiliar and strung into this frighteningly dangerous and unfamiliar circumstance, disconcerting to say the least. Primarily because his efforts to return her body temperature to homeostasis were wasted; secondarily because they'd never been this close since... she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them regretfully, almost crying as the image of a cracked wall with peeling wallpaper invaded her image as if it were imitating her own life—falling apart one layer at a time with no one to care for or mend it back together. After all, it was only a wall; it would serve its purpose with or without ornamental design. She couldn't do the same without her flesh—physical or mental, the film of life encapsulating her core was being stripped away whether she liked it or not.

How long until she was nothing but a shell, like Elijah had been? When would the life flee from her eyes? When would her end find her?

House was unusually silent the entire time, causing Cuddy to wonder whether or not he had fallen asleep. Ending the mystery, Cuddy lifted her chin to meet House eye to eye.

His piercing blues were radiantly beaming with a controlled compassion she had never seen before. Her lips upturned as if fighting gravity, but her eyes remained the same—dismal and tired, lacking the vibrancy of someone willing to fight for life, like a child struck one too many times or a boxer who was unflinchingly paralyzed before an approaching knock out.

House experimentally brushed a loose strand of hair from Cuddy's face. Her curls were loose and uncared for, having been slept in, dragged along the streets through harsh winds after escaping from a ransacked home, and treated with nothing but the stale air of a warehouse-like apartment. Her eyes seemed to gaze up at him like a lost child, big and bright, but unsure and timid. As if attached to divergent horses, his insides clenched at the feeling of his comfort level being ripped apart from all ends. He had restrained himself in silence for long enough he reasoned, and finally spoke, ready to permanently burry this side of Cuddy so that he might welcome back the vivacious, powerful, confident Cuddy.

"Talk to me," he offered, not able to approach from any other angle. There were too many questions to ask when one didn't know which answer was most desirable.

Cuddy swallowed a hard lump in her throat and opened her mouth to speak; the sound of a dry mouth cracking open alerted her of her thirst just as her stomach growled in procession. She ignored it only to fend off the feelings, and told the unusually silent man beside her what she knew.

This being the conversation, silence ensued shortly after she had begun. She didn't know much.

"All he gave you was a journal?" House asked incredulously, attempting to control his temper. Elijah's selfishness in taking his life before helping Cuddy in hers sparked the beginning of a rage-full implosion.

"It was all he had," she defended, not certain why she was protecting his character; only sure that if he did have more—knew more, she wouldn't want to know. Now that he was gone there was no need to wonder what he might have excluded from her. It would only serve to eat her alive until paranoia deluded her senses and drove her mad.

"Did you learn anything?" He flipped through the pages idly, his mind working to devise a plan of action.

Cuddy remained still, not feeling the need to animate herself, but strangely comfortable in her newfound stiffness. "He was just a normal guy," she breathed out softly, "he went through the same changes I have; the only thing I have left to do now is read on for what I have in store to come."

"I was on my way to collect some food." Cuddy continued after House had not spoken. "I'm not so sure I have much of an appetite anymore though." Cuddy stopped and lifted her head with the sudden onslaught of an idea.

She began thinking aloud, using House as the target to which she tossed her thoughts. "I can't feel fire because I can't be warmed--just like Elijah, and now...this isn't appetite loss," she speculated, "there's no food here because Elijah didn't need food." Cuddy lowered her head. "I don't need food." It wasn't a grand realization because just like everything else, it led her nowhere. She was evolving further and further from the human race as far as she was concerned.

House was now holding the journal in his hands, flipping through the pages and scanning every word at the pace of an Olympic speed reader. If these weathered pages held the answer to unleashing Cuddy from this...curse or whatever it was, he would read every last word, punctuation, decipher every smudge, and trace the ink back the store it was purchased from if it would unleash Cuddy long enough for her to return to her old self.

"Here!" House stood up, bouncing on his left leg, not that he noticed the pain that caused him to do so, and began reading aloud.

_I walked past the window this morning and could have sworn someone was touching me. It radiated a feeling I had long forgotten--the feeling of warmth which could only be emitted from the embrace of another human being or the power of the sun. I was alone as I have been for the past two months now so I knew what it had to be. I opened the window feeling as if I had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. And it was real. The first real sensation I've felt since the accident. My skin tingled. I forgot how it could do that--the complete opposite of a shiver; coming alive as if God were reuniting my soul with my body all over again. This __has__ to mean something! But what is left for the old me in a world where everyone I've ever loved or known is either dead by my hand or still breathing for the day that I die?_

House finished reading through the passage, but the hope he had been expecting to be greeted by in Cuddy's eyes was as absent as ever. "This is it," assured House, stepping closer to Cuddy and handing her the journal which they both hoped would save her life. "That was the turning point. Directly before it has to be the event that changed him; that fixed him, and after must be when he met you--when he got rid of it." The last statement was said quietly, not noticeably so from the rest of his words, but to her it was obvious. It should have sounded excited, but she knew the difference.

Cuddy could tell he was withholding in his voice the primal anger he had for Elijah's afflicting her with this out of all the people in the world. But he had hope. The most pessimistic man she had ever known who didn't give a damn if someone lived or died, had hope. Hope for her.

The thought crossed her mind briefly that he just wanted to solve the mystery, but she pushed it aside even quicker than it had come. It was enough that he was here with her. Whether he wanted to be for her sake or his, she didn't care anymore.

She was done being scared. Done pitying herself and allowing herself to be the object of pity. She turned the page forward to read ahead, needing to know for her own restless soul if this really was the turning point for him; and if was, was it the change she wanted to invoke in herself?

XXXXX

A/N: not the most exciting chapter I admit, but I just need something to get me rolling again. Reviews always help of course, hint, hint. :)


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